Newspaper Civic Journalism 2009 Harvey Winner

(I,ITE . . .

CARMEL HIGH SCHOOL

inside the issue

• Houndstock to benefit Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, Page 2 • IB exams to occur, noticeable differences from AP tests, Page 3 • Single students face upcoming Prom in various ways, B1

women’s track This year’s team looks to defend last year’s titles, preparing for MIC and County. page 10

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timeline 6:15 to 7 a.m.: Volunteers and actors arrive to set up the sene.

7 to 7:45: Mock Car Crash scene events, which include the police and fire department, will go on as students walk up the trail.

8:30: Clean-up begins. jordan rolsky / source

Carmel, IN 46032

Volume 54, Issue 13

April 30, 2009

Mock car crash reminds students to be safe on prom

by Kiernan mcgeehan kmcgeehan@hilite.org Like most members of Carmel LifeLines, an anti drug club here, Jordan Rolsky, vice president and senior, puts a lot of effort into ensuring her peers and classmates remain drug-free.

“I just don’t get the point,” Rolsky said. “One bad move with drugs can end your life forever.

Drugs can ruin your career, sports, school work or your relationships with good friends.”

Rolsky is not alone. Carmel LifeLines consists of over 135 members who feel the same way about drugs and alcohol. The club

participates in many activities to promote being drug free, including its biggest event, the mock car crash before prom. Today, LifeLines hosted the mock car crash before school while students walked up the trail.

“I was a sophomore during the last mock car crash,” senior Erin Meyer said. “It was pretty intense, and I’ve been excited to see what kind of stuff they’re planning on doing this year.”

According to Rolsky, the car crash has always been planned to be along the trail in the morning so students walking up the trail can see the effects of drinking and driving. There were also actors and actresses who pretend

to be severely injured and get taken away by an ambulance.

According to LifeLines sponsor Rebekah Overbey, the car crash usually has the most impact on students.

“I think what we do before prom has a huge impact on students,” Overbey said. “It will make the kids stop and think about the decisions they have made, and the decisions they will make.”

And the crash isn’t the only event LifeLines sponsors.

Stephanie Wright, vice president and senior said, “We do events like D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) with elementary school students and pre-spring break activities and events.”

The message LifeLines greatly stresses is not to drink underage.

According to Alcohol Alert, in 2007, there were approximately 15,829 alcohol-related fatalities.

“The numbers are pretty shocking,” Overbey said. “But I know what we do is good because if we save one life, I know we’re doing our job.”

Activities hosted by LifeLines show and tell students that no matter what kind of peer pressure students are under, they don’t have to drink, according to Wright.

“The club helps students realize that there are many people who care about not drinking,” she said.

“It especially shows the elementary

kids they don’t have to fall into peer pressure.”

Overall, the club’s main focus is to ensure all students know how great of an impact drugs and alcohol can have on teenagers and adults. Also, the club tries to make sure that the message gets across to students by showing the dire consequences for the decisions that students make.

Overbey said, “Students need to know what can happen to them if they do make the wrong choice.

“Also, students need to know that they can get help with any problems they may have with drugs, alcohol or whatever, no matter what their situation may be.”

Here We Go Again

Latest contract conflicts affect availability of teachers as club sponsors, chaperones

michelle hu / photos

UNFORTUNATE CONSEQUENCES: Night of Rights is this school’s Amnesty International’s largest event during the school year. Although corporate sponsorships were more readily available, Amnesty faced roadblocks before securing a teacher chaperone for the event. who share opinions on the subject,” he said.

Last weekend’s Night of Rights was another area of dispute for Amnesty. Although chaperones were necessary for the event, Southard said she had trouble asking teachers for their help.

“I was real uncomfortable about asking colleagues to come out on a Saturday night and do something beyond the day. Some teachers won’t even meet me before and after school to discuss projects, so it’s just a real tough time, and I don’t think a lot of the community are aware of what’s going on because our teachers, our faculty, hasn’t let it impact their instruction,” she said.

According to Southard, the contract dispute is doing more than hurting the wallets of teachers at this school; it is beginning to hurt students as well by lowering their extracurricular options.

Southard said, “(Amnesty International is) a very diverse club. They do very good work, and they have very good leadership that has been very independent, and I know that they’ll continue to work, and I just wish that we could settle on a contract. So many teachers, because they care so much about the work they do and their students outside the class, are going to continue to do what do.

“And it’s until the powers that be see a slip in academics that real action is going to be taken,” she added, “and I feel really bad because I feel like I’m deserting the students who want to do good things for the greater good. This isn’t affecting anyone else but me and them.”

“This application was deeply 1 billion approximate number offensive and of iPhone application should not have downloads to date been approved for distribution on the at least 25,000 App Store.”

APPLE STATEMENT,

applications available for the iPhone

after it discontinued an iPhone application called Baby Shaker, which made a game of quieting crying babies by shaking them.

apple.com / source

ROCKING OUT (RIGHT): Sophomore David Chiang plays the cello as part of The Fuse at Night of Rights.

FIXING WRONGS (BELOW): Rachel Johnson, Amnesty International member and senior, holds a presentation board about the detainment of illegal citizens, which is Amnesty’s newest cause.

A list of some of the world’s most pressing headlines

go online

ABC News: “Police: Man Cut And To read the articles Stabbed After Flatulence Fight” accompanying Associated Press: “Woman’s tofu these headlines, visit us online for license plate curdles in Colo.” the links.

Associated Press: “Ohio man charged with drunken driving on bar stool” CNN: “Scientists warn of Twitter dangers” Telegraph: “Italy earthquake: elderly woman knitted as she waited for rescue”

www.hilite.org

know and tell

mnesty International, a chapter of which exists at this school, is, according to the Amnesty International Web site, a human rights group that is supported around the globe.

“In our branch, we kind of pick a different topic every year to concentrate on, and we just kind of educate ourselves and people in the club and other people in the community about the topic,” Kevin Wang, Amnesty International treasurer and senior, said.

However, due in part to current and past contract disputes between the school system and teachers, Amnesty has struggled to find a consistent sponsor in years past. And most recently, the group struggled to find chaperones for its annual Night of Rights.

Patricia Southard, current Amnesty International sponsor and English teacher, said, “We’ve been working without a contract since June, and we’ve also had many, many, many cuts in the middle schools and high schools, which scares me because of my student load next year.”

Southard began sponsoring Amnesty in 1996 and took a hiatus to finish postgraduate work. She, like many other teachers, said she is concerned about how to balance her job and extracurricular groups, like clubs.

While Wang said he admits that this school’s chapter of Amnesty International is more or less selfsufficient without a sponsor, but in order for a club here to be official, it must have a teacher sponsor.

“We really don’t have any teacher guidance at all,” Wang said. “It’s really more student-driven now than anything. The way it goes now, we just kind of use (the sponsor’s) room and there isn’t too much participation on their part, but I do like the student-driven part because we get to decide what we do.”

The problems faced by this school’s Amnesty International chapter are only the tip of the iceberg as the contract dispute begins affecting even more areas of the school.

Wang said, “I think clubs as a whole are probably going to be struggling, too, because there’s budget cuts going around and the teachers have to pick up extra classes and all that, so they don’t have time to devote to club activities,” Wang said.

Southard said she’s been approached by other students to take on sponsorship of additional clubs for this year and next. It’s been difficult, she said, to say no. “I just don’t know what my status is going to be,” she said, “and with this whole contract thing, it hurts the students, but I don’t know how else to make a point.”

Wang said Amnesty International specifically has had trouble with sponsorship in the past because of its general political affiliations. With the contract dispute, that affiliation makes finding a sponsor even tougher.

“It’s a ver y liberal group, and we’re in Carmel, where the majority of people are rather conservative, so it’s kind of hard to find people

recent Headlines

A

by lauren burdick lburdick@hilite.org

Page 2 • Thursday, May 21, 2009 • News

State changes half-day policy Districts no longer allowed to combine shortened days to meet 180-day quota

by Brittani Wheeler bwheeler@hilite.org

If we have ...

1 2 3

Then we:

snow day,

Attend school on May 3, 2010 (flex day)

Then we: snow days, Attend school on May 3 and May 28 (make up day) snow days,

Then we:

Attend school on May 3, May 28 and June 1 (after graduation)

4

snow days,

Then we:

Attend school on May 3, May 28, June 1, June 2 Steve Dillon / SOURCE

GREYHOUND NEWS BRIEFS Carmel Clay Public Library

The summer reading program will begin June 1; and the Teen Library Council (TLC) applications will be due June 15.

According to Hope Baugh, the Young Adult (YA) services manager at the Carmel Clay Public Library (CCPL), the summer reading program is the library’s largest event. It is from June 1 to Aug. 3, and it is for all middle school and high school students.

She said, “(The people at CCPL) try to promote reading for people and this summer reading program is just a fun thing to do on top of the reading.

It doesn’t even need to be a book.

(Students) could read a magazine or listen to a recording of a book.”

The prizes, according to Baugh, include two summer souvenirs and raf fle tickets. The two summer souvenirs are toys or office and school supplies. Prizes from the raffles include an Edward Cullen stand-up guy, state fair tickets and gift cards.

Junior Yue “Annie” Tang, who has participated in the summer reading program in previous years and plans to participate again this year, said, “The summer reading program is a great way to encourage students to read during the summer.”

As for her goal for the CCPL during the summer, Baugh said, “My goal is to encourage people to read for recreation for the rest of their lives.”

By Michael Wang

rotary interact According to sponsor Brenda Lester, Rotary Interact Club members may have to work into the summer to complete their international project.

Interact had originally planned to raise money to build wells in Mongolia, but Sally Bae, member of Interact and junior, said that the plan got too complicated because too much money was involved.

The new international project plan is to raise money for the school they are currently sponsoring in Mongolia.

“We're probably going to end up sending school supplies and clothing to the school we work with,” she said.

“It's probably going to be a lot easier because we don't have to negotiate much with the other Rotary Clubs or raise tons of money.” By Susie Chen

corrections and clarifications FROM THE 4.30 ISSUE The “Men’s golf team heads to State meet” was misleading; the state tournament for men’s golf does not start until June. In the same story, quote in the second paragraph was repeated in the final paragraph.

O

n Monday evening the School Board accepted a new calendar, amended to meet the needs of both the new Indiana Department of Education policies and the teachers contract.

This change occurred after Indiana Superintendent of Public Education Tony Bennett announced to the school districts on March 17 that there would be an alteration in the policies regarding number of school days, according to Superintendent Barbara Underwood. In the past, districts have been able to count half days as full days when these days added to make a whole. Now there Barbara will be no counting of half days and Underwood no waivers for districts to miss one of the days of school. In a school year there must be 180 days.

“We have been working with the teachers association and we have come up with a calendar that meets the state requirements of 180 days and meets our contract requirement with teachers that calls for half days at the end of each semester at the high school and so forth,” Underwood said.

She said a calendar has been developed that meets all criteria. “Not that it is pretty or one that I would choose, but it’s legal and it meets our teacher contract requirements. It doesn’t change the start of school or the end of school or any school vacations,” Underwood said.

BEST LAID PLANS from Page 1

Advisors’ Handbook: The Transition to College” by Jane Rhoads, who directs college reading and study skills classes at Wichita State College, the difficulty of the transition process from high school to college and adulthood is attributed to the fact that students whose independence is restricted may suddenly encounter so much free time once they matriculate into college they will not know how to manage that free time effectively and optimally.

Rhoads stated on the Web site, “The amount of free time you have in college is much more than in high school (so) always have a weekly study schedule to go by. Otherwise, time slips away and you will not be able to account for it.”

As a result, the most difficult aspect of the transition process for students whose freedoms are limited, according to both the article and Heinz, is time management.

Jessie said she agreed that time management will pose the biggest problem for her once she enters college. She said, “I will have all this time on my hands, and here (in high school at home) I have stuff to do and stuff my parents want me to do. (Once in college)...I may not know what to do with it.”

Besides the factor of extra free time, Mrs. Garner acknowledged that the restrictions parents place on their children in high school may backfire. She said the transition may be difficult for students whose freedoms have been limited by rules if they decide to rebel against every one MRS. GARNER of those rules and experiment once they attend college.

She said, “I guess it is possible for them to decide to disobey every rule that they had at home. They may end up with a group that is doing things that they couldn’t do in the past.”

Having recognized that the transition may pose problems to students whose independence is restricted by their parents, Mrs. Garner said she has

Next year, should there be a snow day, the high school will make up that day on its scheduled flex day.

The elementary and middle schools will not have to. On the second snow day, the elementary schools will make up a day, and the high school will make up two days, adding that day at another time during the year. Because of their schedules, the middle schools won’t have to make up any days until after the third snow day. Every level is on a different schedule.

Underwood said, “The thing that it is going to do that we don’t like is change how many extra days we have at different levels of school. For example, we could have one school that would have to make up snow days when others do not have to make them up.”

Administrator Steve Dillon worked on developing this new schedule for this district. He said if it doesn’t snow and we don’t close school for any other reasons, no one is going to notice any difference because the schedule is going to look just like this year. If this district has a day it must close though, then it will start affecting the high school because the very first day of snow will have to be made up in the high school, unlike this year where this district has two additional days than required by the state of Indiana.

In developing schedules, Dillon said the board must consider “things such as starting on a Monday or a Tuesday, ending school on a Thursday or Friday because we find that if you go into the next week and go on a Monday, people just don’t come to school. Now, high school is a little different because you guys have final exams so you kind of have to come, but at our elementary and middle schools, if you end on a Monday people just don’t come, so we try not to do that. It potentially could have an effect on our attendance if you go into the next week,” Dillon said.

With this schedule there is also a potential seniors

tried to give her daughter more independence in order to help Jessie with her transition into college.

In terms of the ways she has tried to give Jessie more independence, Mrs. Garner said that she has begun to extend Jessie’s curfew, allowed Jessie to use her own judgment on what movies she wants to watch and allowed her to enroll here rather than coerce her to attend a small private high school.

Jessie said she has observed that her mom has given her more independence in high school. According to her, this increase in independence, albeit incrementally, will help her adjust to college better.

She said, “If they shelter me too much, I will probably be lost and confused (in college). But if they slowly start to give more freedom, a little bit at a time, then it will be better than all this independence at once.”

According to Heinz, this is a necessary step in order to help students transition to college, especially students who have been sheltered.

She said, “As children get older, parents should be willing to recognize good behavior with additional independence as is appropriate for their son’s or daughter’s age.”

Heinz said she attributed this to the fact that in family relationships with this kind of mutual respect, the transition to college is less stressful for both parents and children.

She said, “Parents can trust that their kids will make smart choices with the independence they will have in college and their children (can) have the self-confidence they need to thrive in their new environment.”

Jessie reasoned this will help her with her transition to college because she will be more exposed to the world and thus be more accepting of other peoples’ beliefs. She said, “In eighth grade I thought pretty much everyone’s opinion except mine was wrong, but now even if I don’t believe in what they believe in, I still, like, accept that they can have their own opinion even if I don’t like it.”

As Jessie approaches college, Mrs. Garner said all she can do is hope that restricting Jessie’s independence but giving her more independence incrementally in high school was for the best in her transition from high school to college.

Mrs. Garner said jokingly, “ So I hope I haven’t scarred (Jessie) for life. I hope (Jessie) won’t need therapy one day.”

would have to come back to school after graduating.

This would occur if there are three or more snow days next school year.

“It certainly will be odd to graduate on Sunday and require that the seniors come back to school after they have graduated,” Dillon said. “We wouldn’t want to do that. No one would come, or if they did they would be very chaotic. It could have a lot of impact; it just depends.

“Once it does happen, if it does happen, I am very comfortable that the professionals in this organization will come together; they have in the past,” Dillon added.

“They are not going to let something like this disrupt graduation, which is the culminating event of 13 years of a student’s life and that’s why we all come to school here and work here. It’s for the kids, so you know today is a different story than a year from now. If we find ourselves in this boat, we will know by early spring if we have a problem to deal with.”

One idea presented by Underwood to keep seniors coming to school in the case of added days would be to hold diplomas until after the last official day of school to encourage seniors to attend the make up day if it would have to be after graduation. However, that’s not set in stone.

Dillon said, “I certainly have to respect our new Superintendent of Public Instruction because his goal is for every student in Indiana to have the opportunity to go to school 180 full days of school. You can’t argue with that, so I support that. The only thing that if he was here right now, I’d like to ask him is, ‘Why this late?’ because what happened was it left Carmel and these other districts scrambling with ‘What are you going to do?’”

Dillon said, “I want that calendar to be the best calendar to support the learning of the kids.”

Jessie’s independence AFTER

BEFORE 1. Jessie has an 11 p.m. curfew.

1. Jessie has a later curfew.

2. Jessie has a curfew for accessing the internet.

2. Jessie can access the internet now at a later time.

3. Jessie has to obtain permission from her parents before watching a movie.

3. Jessie can use her own discretion when choosing to watch movies.

4. Before hanging out with friends, Jessie’s parents want to meet her friends and also her friends’ parents.

4. Jessie can now use her own judgment when making friends. Her parents haven’t met all her friends nor her friends’ parents once in high school.

5. Jessie went to a small Catholic school for elementary and middle school.

5. Jessie goes to Carmel High School.

6. Jessie cannot hang out with friends at certain places.

6. Now that Jessie can drive, she can go to many of the places that she couldn’t go before.

JESSIE AND JANETTE GARNER / SOURCE

Contract negotiations will affect students next year, teachers expect increased student load by lauren burdick lburdick@hilite.org Because of the current ongoing contract negotiations between the teachers and the school board, some students already have noticed fewer available help outside of class. If the dispute continues, this trend may worsen during the 2009-10 school year.

According to U.S. History teacher Karen Taff, who is also a representative of the teachers' union here, contract negotiations began a year ago. On Sept. 23, 2008, the school board declared impasse in contract negotiations.

After an unsuccessful November mediation, an attempt to open new negotiations in January was also unsuccessful.

At that time it was determined that the school board would go to Indiana Education Employment Relations Board (IEERB)-sponsored Fact-Finding, which occurred on April 16 of this year.

“We're just waiting for the Fact-Finder to issue her report, and as soon as she does, we'll have a better sense of direction in knowing where we are,” Taff said.

Until then, students must proceed with school, as some teachers refuse to work more than their contracted hours. Still, some teachers appear to be continuing their teaching strategy as normal.

“I think that the teachers that have good reputations to the students often do more than just the minimum that’s specified in the contract,” sophomore Daniel Goldberg said.

Further lessening teachers' availability to students next year, the recent $1.5 million budget cuts will

cause many teachers here to add a sixth teaching period.

“Certainly there will be a negative impact on students at the high school in that the board's budget cuts of earlier this year disproportionately fell on the secondary level,” Taff said.

At least 10 high school teachers have received ‘reduction in force’ notifications, and those positions will be absorbed by the rest of the staff and in increased numbers of teachers with a sixth teaching assignment.

Those teachers will be unavailable to students during SRT.” According to Taff, with a student load increase, many teachers will reach a “tipping point” where they are unable to designate as many assignments because of the sheer shirley chen / photo amount of grading.

Still, Taf f said she hopes the FLYING SOLO: Sophomore Daniel Goldberg studies his math problems contract disputes coupled with the alone for precalculus. Next year, more students like him may need to find budget cuts will have little effect times other than SRT to ask teachers for help, since many more teachers on what students see in classroom will have additional teaching periods, limiting their availability. instruction next year.

“Obviously we all would like to think, and will High School, we've tried to be more than just lecturers, certainly do our very best to make sure, that classroom and the total package of the delivery of instruction instruction doesn't suffer. And yet we know that there's involves the preparation that you do outside of class, the much more to being an effective educator than the mere quality of assessment that you give, and the effort that delivery of information,” Taff said. “Here at Carmel you put into each and every student.”